I've been refining my practice with comprehensible input now for a little over a year. It has been quite an interesting journey to see both my students' growth as well as my own. One of the things that I have started to notice is that through constant input and repetition, we (both my students and I) are moving away from consciously producing the language towards automatically producing it. … [Read more...]

Focus on those tiny details
How about a quick and dirty, post-reading vocabulary check for AP Latin (or any other language course, for that matter?). Not sure where I picked up this idea, but I use it every now and then to get a quick piece of evidence in my students' portfolio (0% category) and also to help give a snapshot about where they are at in understanding the text. It requires no prep … [Read more...]

Reviewing vocabulary should be a day at the beach.
So much vocabulary, so little time! One of the things that I have started to learn is that vocabulary is not acquired through memorization of flash cards (along with English equivalents) but through lots and lots of repetition and authentic usage. Eventually, the mind casts off the notion of tethering a word to an English equivalent and it … [Read more...]

Script behaviors to promote language acquisition
As I have gained more experience in my transition to comprehensible input (CI) in the classroom, one of the things that seems to have worked best was having some kind of "safety net" (something I discovered on MagisterP's blog) to assure that both me and my students would have a way to stay engaged in our target language. An effective practice, … [Read more...]

I was talking with a dear colleague the other day (hola, Irene Zingg!) and she shared with me that she was asking her students to deliberately enter her AP Spanish class left foot first. The idea is simple; she observed that in martial arts training, you would have a formal way of entering the dojo to help establish that you are crossing over from your normal, everyday life into a new context. … [Read more...]

I just completed my first leg of what I am referring to as "Latin bootcamp". Named the Conventiculum Dickinsoniense, it is an extension of an idea spawned by Dr. Terence Tunberg back in 1996 at the University of Kentucky, known as the Conventiculum Lexintoniense. It started out as a crazy idea - a full immersion event for Latin practitioners whereby the participants would speak nothing but Latin … [Read more...]

“Circling with balls” has become sort of a vital classroom management activity in order to really get your students on board with comprehensible input (CI).
“Circling” is a protocol where you ask students questions to help get the repetitions in around a particular feature or structure of a language. Instead of drill and kill, where retention wains as attention drops, you want to engage … [Read more...]

Dr. Bob Patrick really laid a great foundation for what fluency in the Latin classroom looks like. He posted his Daily Engagement Assessment, or DEA, that he uses to monitor his students daily level of engagement (ok, that was an obvious statement…).
One of the things we who are transitioning from traditional Latin practices to comprehensible input (CI) have to work out is what an assessment … [Read more...]

Ok, maybe the rest of you out there already know this and I’m just a little late to the party. Nothing new there. I just found Vicipaedia to be extremely helpful in assisting our students in our transition into a CI (comprehensible input) class.
Everyone’s context is different, but our school situation may typify others in that there is not a ton of prior knowledge around the mythological and … [Read more...]

Just came across a blog post from Justin Slocum Bailey over at IndwellingLanguage.com. It proposes some ideas to help boost teacher energy with a series of no-prep activities to roll out in class. Truly a great idea as that is not only something all teachers need, but it is especially important for those of us trying to alter our teaching practices and get on the CI (comprehensible input) … [Read more...]